Feature Article

Let Vision and Values Drive Your Marketing Program
(Part 2)

by

Last time we talked about how vision and values should drive your marketing program - and how to go about doing that. This is the conclusion of that article.

Legendary Service cements relationships and results in strong and predictable referral streams.  To obtain the level of buy-in by the agency’s staff, everyone must act from the knowledge of the vision and values of the organization.  Strong, clear values and vision will result in the empowerment of the employees to produce exceptional results.

Integrity and leadership are important to creating the culture that will always act consistently with the values, mission and vision of the agency.  Make certain that every level of management is on board with the program and leading by example.  And as we know it all flows down hill, so senior management must really make an effort to make their leadership by example visible.

Compassion is going to be the number one value that is important to connecting with the nurses and care delivery staff.  They are interested in the ability to provide the very best care to each of their patients.  Compassionate agencies that are able to convey that message are usually more likely to get the referrals and are better able to recruit and retain the best staff.

Accountability is a value that is critical for home care and hospice agencies.  They must be accountable for their promises and deliver on them always.  They must back up their product with a guarantee.  And the staff must be held accountable for their promises.  When there is a problem, the agency must immediately act and resolve it to the total satisfaction of the customer.  By being accountable, you will see your relationships blossom and flourish.

Respect will ultimately make or break an agency’s relationship building.  There must be respect for the patients, clients, the referral sources, the community and all of the staff.  In short respect must be present for all customers.  It should be the basic foundation for all of your activities including your marketing efforts and message.

The goals of your agency should always be to act with the values outlined above and to provide exceptional care.  What will follow are strong relationships built on sturdy foundations.  From those relationships you will see tremendous customer loyalty and the resulting financial strength.  It all starts with your marketing message.  Happy marketing!

Let Vision and Values Drive Your Marketing Program
(Part 1)

by

Who your agency is and what it stands for may well be the most important part of your sales and marketing message.  The ability to convey the mission, vision and values of the organization will have a tremendous impact on the effectiveness of your marketing in the community.  The sales and marketing of home care and hospice services is an inexact science.  The product or service is an intangible and the customer typically does not have a need for it when contacted.  So your message has to connect with the prospective customer with the benefits of your agency’s values for them.  The focus must be on building a relationship with each prospective customer that is based on shared beliefs.  These will always be the strongest long-term relationships.

By communicating values your agency will create a powerful reason to be its customer.  This is always going to be true in dealing with people and applies to both internal and external marketing.  The key to internal referrals (those generated by your staff – other than the marketing team) is belief that your agency provides the very best choice to serve the particular client or patient.  For recruiting and retaining the best staff it is imperative that you do a good job of relaying the agency’s values.  And of course when marketing to your referral sources and the community, anytime you can convey your values in your message you will be way ahead of the competition.  It is important to remember that you must make the values meaningful to each marketing audience. 

When I am on-site at agencies I always am amazed by the elaborately crafted, perfectly worded mission statements on a plaque on the wall.  When I ask the staff about the mission statement it becomes apparent that in most cases they have no buy in and therefore no ownership in the mission statement. Make your mission statement one that is meaningful to your employees and is something that they can get their arms around and believe in.  It must reflect the actions of your agency and its staff and they must take ownership of the statement.  Vision statements likewise must be believable, consistent with mission and actions and owned by the agency members.

Every agency believes that it provides quality services and that quality differentiates it from the competition.  Since all agencies say that they provide the best quality, there is no marketing value in that type of statement.  What has more impact and value is to provide the benefits of quality services to the particular customer.  These benefits need to be defined and communicated.  Quality and Excellence of service delivery are definitely attributes to aspire to, they just ring hollow in marketing messages without tangible proof and benefits.

Next time we’ll finish up this feature talking about how to obtain buy in from the staff and your community.

It’s Not the Size of the Patient That Matters
(Part 2)

by

Some very successful niches for pediatric home care include:

Community health
Home therapy programs
Home infusion
Private pay services
Waiver programs
Respite programs
Home vent management

Selling Pediatric Hospice Services

Programs providing services for children with life limiting conditions and illnesses are truly a blessing to the lives they touch.  They have the same issues all hospice does, only magnified.  It is stressful for the staff, and as such, this many times can become the story the sales team tells the community.  Another key to remember is that because the healthcare professionals are more involved, they have many interactions with those staff.  The staff and the incredible things they do then become the why for selecting your program.

There is a huge opportunity for the pediatric hospice program to expand the community use of hospice. This opportunity is greater than in any other area of hospice.  The accompanying issues of late referrals (right at end of life), not wanting to feel they are giving up, and the over emphasis on cancer diagnosis are the same.  For all of these reasons a sales and marketing program for pediatric hospice is very rewarding. 

Thanks to all of you who are telling the story in the community and enabling more children, families and siblings to benefit from these incredible services.

It’s Not the Size of the Patient That Matters
(Part 1)

by



Pediatric home care and hospice services are a true gift to the patients and their families.  We tend to focus most of our attention on the services we provide for elderly patients, which is natural since they comprise a majority of the total revenue for our industry.  While it’s the demographic that immediately comes to mind when someone says home care or hospice, the gift of home care and hospice is no greater than with its smallest patients.

The complexity involved in working with payer sources for pediatric cases is greater because very few are Medicare. First, every state has a different program to meet the needs of the pediatric Medicaid eligible population.  Private insurers all have different philosophies and approaches.  And finally, there is the added complication of the need for a caregiver and demands of the parent’s work situation.  Thankfully there are many agencies willing to work with these difficulties, and meet the needs of this fragile population.

On the surface, the sales formula is the same - only two ways to increase referrals for the program.  They can come from those that would have otherwise gone to the competitor, or they can come from expanded use of the services by the community. The big difference that needs to be highlighted is that our job of making sure the community knows what services are available is more important since there are so many pediatric patients that go without home care or hospice services. These patients are going uncared for when they should be the first to have as easy a time as possible.. 

It is my experience that healthcare professionals take a greater interest in selecting the right provider for their pediatric patients.  This, of course, provides a greater opportunity for an agency to build relationships built upon great service and the ability to understand and even anticipate their needs.  Pediatric specialists will go out of their way to send their patients to a specific agency, and will also go to greater lengths to make sure a provider that has disappointed in the past is not receiving referrals.

As with any specialty program, you must first research the niche to find out what the needs of your community are for pediatric services.  How large is the market?  What are the unmet needs or sources of dissatisfaction?  What payer sources will give you an adequate price or contract?  The program should be built to specifications dictated by these basic questions.  You will want to build a sales and marketing message that sets you apart from the other providers.  And since there are less providers who cater to pediatrics, by number, the basics take on greater significance. 

Next time we will go over some very successful niches for pediatric home care.

Go Beyond Patient and Referral Partner Satisfaction
(Part 3 of 3)

by

Over the last few weeks, we’ve gone over how If a hospice or home care agency only does what is expected of it, that agency will never get credit for its greatness, and how satisfied patients are, that are well served and cared for should be the agency’s top priority.  To build the successful relationships necessary to grow and prosper, we talked about how an agency must not only measure patient satisfaction, but also be proactive in creating an entire customer service culture that aspires not just to satisfy the patient but to really impress them. In order to do that, the major step is to be surveying patients and referral sources (and in some cases, families). The second important thing to collect are testimonials, as they are perhaps the single most powerful marketing tool you can have. In addition to those two aspects, today we’re going to talk about using data and qualitative measurements. 

Medicare agencies will want to consider including Quality Improvement data generated by the CMS.  It provides some qualitative information that is benchmarked against national averages.  This will allow you additional measures to include in your report.  Another reason to initiate this discussion is that the CMS will be publishing some of this data along with survey data online as a sort of “report card” for consumers to use in selecting home care services.  By raising this issue first and creating the ongoing conversation about quality and the measurements thereof in home care, you will never have to be on the defensive if the referral source raises the issue first.

Private Pay agencies will want to create reports showing the quality measurements that will distinguish themselves from the competition.  In the past, this has not really been an issue for Private Duty agencies but with the increased competition in today’s market, you will want to create any and all competitive advantages.  If you have been collecting data for awhile, then now is the time to get it analyzed (and benchmarked where available) so that you can use it in your sales presentations.  Since we do not aspire to be in a commodity business or spend our time competing on a price basis, having quality measurements graphically represented in our marketing materials and sales presentations is key.  The effectiveness of using quality as a strategic advantage has never been greater.  You should use this advantage in all of your presentations from the individual prospective client, their family, influencers, retirement communities, assisted living facilities, etc.

Insurance companies and case managers in general are always interested in having quality measurements to assist with risk management.  Provide them with your results in a comprehensive fashion, with the measures selected that will be of interest to the case manager.  Insurance companies typically restrict the amount of services approved and will always be impressed by your ability to deliver great outcomes, reduced hospitalizations, and high satisfaction scores for insurance patients.

Marketing and sales efforts will be greatly enhanced by the quantification of your agency’s delivery of quality service.  Everyone claims quality in their marketing materials and sales presentations, but few can quantify and back up those claims.  Your ability to graphically show your results will enable your referral sources to know that their referrals are receiving exemplary care and service.

Go Beyond Patient and Referral Partner Satisfaction
(Part 2 of 3)

by

Last week, we went over how If a hospice or home care agency only does what is expected of it, that agency will never get credit for its greatness, and how satisfied patients that are well served and cared should be the agency’s top priority.  To build the successful relationships necessary to grow and prosper, we talked about how an agency must not only measure patient satisfaction, but also be proactive in creating an entire customer service culture that aspires not just to satisfy the patient but to really impress them. In order to do that, the major step is to be surveying patients and referral sources (and in some cases, families).

Last week we talked about how to survey patients and families. Now let’s discuss how your referral sources should also be surveyed for their satisfaction.  The information that you will collect in this process will allow you to better target your marketing efforts.  It also allows an opportunity for the referral source to provide you with suggestions, complaints or problems.  Keeping in mind that the relationship between a customer and an agency where there has been a problem that was resolved to the customer’s satisfaction will be always be stronger.  Welcome problems as golden opportunities.  These surveys should not be done by mail more frequently than once a quarter and should be easy to complete.  Each survey should be accompanied with a list of the patients or clients that they referred that are on service during the quarter.  Additional surveys may be completed in person or by phone to derive additional data.

In your agency’s quest to create its Legendary Service culture, the survey data will provide important guideposts to finding areas of excellence as well as areas for improvement.  Be sure to ask those questions that will provide you with this type of guidance.  The goal is to consistently exceed the expectations of every customer and WOW them with every interaction.  All of the staff needs to be rewarded for their doing the right thing for the right reason and generating the great relationships with the customer.  Make those efforts public - both to the agency’s staff and the referral sources.

You will want to create reports that are easy for the referral source (both existing and prospective) to see just how your agency’s quality is reflected in your surveys.  Whenever possible seek other agency data for the purpose of benchmarking.  Generally this will require the use of some standardized questions and a relationship with a company that compiles satisfaction data for the industry.  Make your reports graphical so that it is easy to understand the level of quality at a glance.  Tailor your reports to be specific to the interests of each different type of referral source whenever possible.

While conducting satisfaction surveys you are presented with a great time to ask for and receive testimonials.  Testimonials are perhaps the most powerful single marketing tool that you can have.  Make sure to ask for testimonials anytime anyone is praising your agency’s service.  Train the staff in the office to do likewise.  Ask for permission to use the testimonial with their name and ideally a photo. 

Okay, so next week we’re going to wrap this whole series up, but for now happy selling!

Go Beyond Patient and Referral Partner Satisfaction
(Part 1 of 3)

by

If a hospice or home care agency only does what is expected of it, that agency will never get credit for its greatness.  Satisfied patients that are well served and cared for are the agency’s top priority.  To build the successful relationships necessary to grow and prosper, an agency must not only measure patient satisfaction, but also be proactive in creating an entire customer service culture that aspires not just to satisfy the patient but to really impress them.

Every agency should be surveying their patients and clients on a regular basis.  These surveys can be completed by mail, in person and by phone.  The survey process should be uniform and include surveys of the customers at several important points in the relationship between them and the agency.  This type of data gathering has been generating amazing results from major corporations of late, as they call this process “mapping the customer journey”, and have been using it to understand where they can improve their customer’s experience. Using this process of surveying and mapping the patient’s journey will help you understand where you can strengthen your service in order to gain high customer satisfaction numbers and create more word of mouth marketing.

To start, a new customer survey should be completed within the first two weeks of establishing their service.  This survey is extremely important as it allows the agency to catch any problems early in the relationship and fix them sooner than later.  It also confirms for the patient or client the agency’s dedication to excellent care and customer service.  For home care and some hospice care patients, another survey should be completed after the patient or client has been on service for at least 30 days - most times this can be completed by phone.  While this is a much simpler task for home care agencies, the same surveys can be utilized in hospice situations as well, but the process might involve family members rather than the patients themselves, or it might involve a more personal process, such as having the nurse or volunteer ask the same types of survey questions during an appropriate time.

Lastly, every customer should be surveyed at the end of their services or every 60 days for long term clients or patients. Again, the process for hospice when it comes to how to apply the surveys, who will apply them, and when, will vary agency to agency.

Be clear on your objectives in surveying your patients.  You will want to design your surveys to ask some open ended questions to better provide the agency with more feedback than if all of the questions are “circle the number” answers.  The survey should reflect the questions that the agency wants to know from its clients and patients.  This kind of data is very valuable and should be analyzed on a regular basis to determine any trends and the effect of any new policies or initiatives.

Armed with your survey data you will be able to use this in your marketing efforts.  First you will want to share the favorable data with each of your referral sources, for their patients and the entire population.  This will allow you to reinforce the referral source’s selection of your agency to provide services, as well as providing an ideal time to ask for more referrals.

Your referral sources should also be surveyed for their satisfaction.  We will go over this part of it in the next newsletter. Until then, happy selling!

Seven Simple Steps to Boost the Effectiveness of Brochures and Print Advertisements:
(Part 2 of 2)

by

In the last newsletter, we went over how Home care and Hospice agencies spend a fortune each year on printed materials and advertisements, and that most brochures may be nice looking but are not effective.  It is critical that agencies make the return on marketing investment as high as possible by creating the most effective materials and advertisements.  Here are the remaining tips to improve the impact and results of your printed material:

4) Keep it Clean

This means you should not try to cram too much into the space allowed.  White space is good to have in advertisements and in brochures.  Keep the message clear and on point with the goals for the item.  Edit for extraneous, repetitive or superfluous text, graphics or photos.  Make it easy for the intended customer to see and understand the message. 

Make it easy for the prospective customer to “see” the message.  An example:  It is much easier for the reader to understand a list of bulleted benefits than to have to read paragraphs of text to find these important items.

5) Use Testimonials or Endorsements

A testimonial will tell the story and create credibility faster than anything that you can do.  People will always believe what others say about you more than what you say about yourself.  Testimonials will tell the reader how others just like them have benefited from your services.  The most effective testimonials have the person’s name and photograph.  Remember: make sure you have written permission to use the testimonial, name and photo in the promotion of your agency.

Endorsements lend credibility by having a respected person recommend your agency to others.  The better known and respected the person is, the more impact their endorsement will have.  Make sure that the person making the endorsement is famous for something that is consistent with the agency’s image and reputation. 

6) Use Simple Words and a Simple Style

Use short simple words to express your meaning.  Educated readers understand simple words while uneducated people do not understand long high-brow words.  Even if you have to substitute three or four words for one difficult one, you will be much better off.  Write at an educational level just under the lowest one in your target market.

Better to invoke a complex emotion from the audience than to create complex sentences that mean nothing to them.

7) Include a Call to Action

Include a call to action in your advertisements.  Offer a free booklet or report - something of perceived value to the intended audience.  Then provide an easy way to request it.  Include a direct response mail card, a toll-free number - whatever will make is easiest and least threatening for your prospect to request.  Include an E-mail address rather than a Web address for your prospects to respond electronically.  This allows you to start electronic conversations with prospects and not just count hits on your Web page.

7.5) Always Have a Plan to Maximize Benefit

Whatever you do, make sure that you have a well designed set of processes in place to handle the responses generated by the marketing campaign.  Unless you convert these responses into new business, then you will have wasted your investment in the campaign.

Who will answer the phone when it rings?  How will the inquiry be handled?  What are your goals for number of leads and conversion ratios?  How will the follow-up be handled?  These are some of the questions that you must have answered being running the marketing campaign.

How you track the source of the inquiries will tell you how effective your marketing campaign has been.  If you have multiple marketing initiatives ongoing at the same time, you must know which are pulling the best results.  This is achieved by asking the caller how they heard about the agency and then recording this information for every inquiry received.  Over time you will see where your best return on marketing investment is generated.  To develop the best and most useful data, track the conversion ratio and value of each customer for each of your marketing campaigns separately.  That way you will be able to compare the actual impact of each initiative in bottom line dollars and cents.

Whenever you are creating a new print piece, follow these seven simple steps and you will see the performance of your brochure or print ad skyrocket.  This will allow you to see the maximum return on your marketing investment.  Good luck and happy marketing.

Seven Simple Steps to Boost the Effectiveness of Brochures and Print Advertisements:
(Part 1 of 2)

by

Home care and Hospice agencies spend a fortune each year on printed materials and advertisements.  Most brochures printed may be nice looking, but are not effective.  Agencies spend a lot on print advertisements, including Yellow Pages ads, but, how effective are they?  It is critical that agencies make the return on marketing investment as high as possible by creating the most effective collaterals and advertisements.  Once you have defined your target audience and the goals for the campaign, here are seven tips to improve the impact and results of your printed material:

1) Sell Benefits not Features
This single piece of advice can make an investment in a marketing campaign, brochure, advertising campaign, etc. a success rather than a failure.  When developing the list of benefits you should always keep the customer in mind.  If you know what is important to the intended customer then you will be able to design your campaign for maximum effectiveness. 

Don’t make any assumptions about what will be important to the customer.  Ask your current customers the questions to know what they value about agency and its services. 

Define the target market and what they want from a home care agency.  Look at your message from this customer’s viewpoint.  Test, test and test your message some more.  Talk to your customers.  Conduct surveys with prospective customers and or new target markets to find out what they need and their attitudes toward home care.  Test new marketing messages to make sure that they are answering the needs of the intended customer with interviews, focus groups and surveys.  Your message must resonate with the intended market to be truly effective.

Customers want to know how your service will meet their needs, make them feel safer or otherwise provide them with something of perceived value.  List all of the benefits of working with your agency.  Then determine those that are most important to the intended audience.  Include them in the creation of your marketing piece or campaign.

2) Use Photos and Graphics that Tell the Story

The old saying “A picture is worth a thousand words” is very true in designing effective printed pieces.  The photo must be one that makes the customer experience the proper emotion to be most effective.  Captions under photos should be included to best explain what is going on in the photo that is important to the customer.  Don’t assume that the customer looks at the photo and understands the importance.  Make it easy for the consumer to get the intended message.

Use graphics that are additive to the message and that make it easier to understand the message.  For Example:  A service area map is always more effective than a list of counties or cities served.

If you use graphics or photos designed to “grab” someone’s attention, make sure that they are consistent with the image and message you are building.

3) Use Effective Headlines

The headline must tell the reader exactly why they should consider your agency.  Crafting the right headline should be something that you get professional help with.  The right headline can make your brochure or advertisement ten times more effective.  This is especially true for print ads and Yellow Pages ads.  The headline is the single most important item in these ad designs.

Use sub-headings to explain each section or each paragraph.  This will make your copy more effective and easier for the customer to find what they are looking for.  You cannot expect the customer to read every word in a brochure - they will skim the headlines and read the information that answers their question.

Okay, we’re going to cut it off there for this week. In the next part, we’re going to go over the remaining aspects to maximize your printed collaterals and how to use these collaterals to your greatest advantage.  Until next week, happy selling!

Learn From Other Industries: How “New Coke” and Other Mistakes Can Teach Us What To Avoid In Order To Save Time and Money
(Part 2 of 2)

by

This week’s column is a continuation of last week, when we talked about what mistakes your agency can avoid to save time and money.

Poor Quality
It always amazes me when I see a large company using really poor quality materials in their marketing.  I have seen two major national home care companies (that will go unnamed) use fourteenth generation photocopies in marketing letters sent to physicians!  One of the letters was a mail piece to a doctor that had never used this particular agency.  Enclosed was a copy (poor) of a document labeled “Rights of the Physician.” It didn’t matter that the piece was a poor choice to use in an introductory, cold letter - the doctor never got past the fact that it looked awful.  The other was a letter sent out to a physician after they had sent their first referral.  The nicely done cover letter welcomed the doctor.  They should have stopped right there, but they didn’t.  Enclosed was a (you guessed it) very poor photocopy with a statement signed by the management providing information that the agency is required to send out to new doctors by their own policy.  Once again the doctor was not impressed and was actually amused enough to give it to me! 

Web sites
Everyone has a Site these days.  And consumers are getting very sophisticated in their use of the Internet.  If you don’t make it easy to use your Site and very clear what the user needs to do to do business with you, you will loose them.  Simple as that.  It goes back to knowing your customer and designing your Site with them in mind.  If you expect to have Senior citizens use your Web site it might be nice to have large print and easy to follow instructions.


Sales people
If you are like me, you dread it when you need to go to the car dealership to buy a new car (or a used one for that matter).  Why?  Because of the awful sales people and sales tactics employed.  The last time my wife and I were looking for a car, I made the mistake of going to the most convenient dealership.  Bad idea - they badgered me and threw features at me from the get go.  Think of the more successful dealerships of late and you will almost always find that they have changed their sales approach.  Rarely will someone rave about a dealership unless they had a good sales experience.  Home care and Hospice sales people have to be accepted as professionals and must represent themselves and your agency well.  They will never be successful if they do not.  The worst thing that you can have happen with sales people is turnover.  If you hire unprofessional sales people you are guaranteeing turnover.


Service and Quality
Have you eaten at a new restaurant and came away really impressed with the food and the service?  What happens when you go back and it is not as good?  You stop going to that restaurant.  Soon the restaurant has gone through all of the new customers and are soon going out of business.  This happens too often in our industry as well.  Once an agency gets too busy they stop providing the same level of service… and soon they are not as busy.


CRM
There are nationally known companies that have invested tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software.  They do so thinking that it will “fix” all of their customer service issues.  What they have found out is this:  Bad Customer Service plus CRM still equals Bad Service.  What CRM will do is to support your customer service and sales force.  It will help them to know their customers and their likes and dislikes.  Glad the other industries paid the huge bucks to do the research for us!

The bottom line is that you must know your customers and then protect your relationship with them.  Polish your image, make sure your people are dressed for success and happy marketing!

Learn From Other Industries: How “New Coke” and Other Mistakes Can Teach Us What To Avoid In Order To Save Time and Money
(Part 1 of 2)

by

Back in the 1980s and 90s, Coca-Cola introduced a whole new reformulation of their classic drink, calling it “New Coke”.  Coca-Cola, normally a very smart marketing organization, ended up with a huge fiasco on their hands, lost millions, and in 1992 were forced to rebrand their old formula as “Coca Cola Classic”.
So what happened? How could one of the strongest brands and smartest marketers stray so far from their past success?

Six crucial words: they forgot who their customers were.  In their haste to compete with the Pepsi generation, they had not taken the time to consider whether or not their core group of customers would drink this new version.  When changes are made to a successful product or service, if you lose the established customers you have lost ground.  In hindsight I would guess that Coca-Cola would have been better off creating “Old Coke” - a version that would cause their established customers to get nostalgic, warm and fuzzy.  In home care and hospice marketing, we must learn from the mistakes of others - both inside and outside the industry.


First, know your customer

How often do you see a letter or an advertisement that totally misses the mark?  One that leaves you scratching your head and saying something like, “What were they thinking?” If you know each of the different type of customer you serve (and don’t forget why they chose to do business with you) you will keep from making these mistakes.  This would include knowing both the recipients of care AND the referral sources.  The better you know your customers, the better you will connect with them.  So unless you have too many customers - stop and take the time to get to know each of them.  Then review every service offering and every piece of communication to make sure that they are going to be acceptable to your existing customers.


First Impressions

How many opportunities do you have to make a first impression?  When you have a bad first impression, more times than not you will find another company for the specific product or service.  Even when one forgives the bad first impression, the customer proceeds with a cautious attitude and will bolt at the first sign of trouble.  Home care and Hospice agencies must never forget this important element.  The first impression may be formed by the way in which callers are greeted and welcomed upon their first call to the agency.  Or, it may be formed by the first person to visit the client or patients home, or the referral sources office.  You will never know where or when you will form these first impressions - so invest in making sure that every impression your agency makes is great.


Image

Big companies spend millions of dollars cultivating and creating an image.  If they are on the mark, they will have a very positive return on those dollars invested.  Many companies trade off of images that were created many years ago.  The secret is continually cultivating and promoting their products in a consistent manner to preserve the image.  If management makes a fatal mistake and doesn’t recover fast enough, they will many times start on a downward spiral that may destroy the company.  What is your image in the community?  Once you have defined it clearly, then you must make sure that everything that you and the agency do is consistent with building this image.


Phone Manners and Voice Mail

When you call into a company that you are choosing to do business with, and their phone manners or phone system makes you mad, what do you do?  You call their competitor. Think of this situation:  Your community education team (marketers) have worked for months to cultivate an important new referral source.  That source calls in the first referral only to be told “Oh, we don’t do that.” Wrong answer!  Or, they get put into voice mail or are treated rudely.  Who are they going to call with their next referral? Your competitor. So even something as simple as how intake answers the phone can torpedo a possibly huge referral source? Absolutely.

This is why it’s crucial to be consistent with a legendary customer service attitude, from every member of your staff, at all times. We’ll get even deeper into other aspects to monitor and improve in the next issue, as well as look at some solutions. Until then, Happy Selling!

The Key to Your Agency’s Sales Success: Partnering (Part 2 of 2)
by

Last week we talked about how to use partnering in order to become your referral source’s provider of choice. We went over HOW to partner with your sources, including needs assessment and implementation. This week, we are going to get into more specifics, including what specific types of questions and how to ask them in order to become your referral source’s logical solution to their needs.

So, there are two basic types of questions, open-ended and closed-ended.  Open-ended questions typically start with who, what, when, where, how and why.  You will typically use open questions to explore particular situations and to identify needs.  They are especially advantageous, because they are open to a large range of responses, providing us an insight into what’s on their mind.  Open probes can also be used to clarify your understanding of what your customer has said.  Closed ones start with words like do, are, is, which or have.  They limit the possible responses to a simple one word answer like yes, or no, a number, or to a few options.  Although closed probes limit possible responses, they have several uses and can be extremely useful in the hands of a sales person. Use them to keep the person on track, to steer the conversation back to the business at hand.

In needs based sales, the most dangerous thing to do is to make assumptions or jump to unfounded conclusions.  This is why confirming the need in this process is so important.  If you do not know that the information you are basing your strategy upon is accurate, then it is only a matter of time before the proposition blows up in your face.  Also, remember that perception is reality to the referral source.  In the process of confirming the information, the referral source is made to feel important.  They feel like the sales person is listening and actively engaged in finding a customized solution.  If you don’t ask, then you will never know for sure.

The referral source may not tell you what you need to know on the first round of questions.  Determine before you go in to see them what your goal is and the questions that you will use.  Preparation and practice are key ingredients to success in this area.  Try different angles until you hit upon the one that gets that next piece of information.  Confirm it and go on to the next.  Over the course of your visits, you are building a relationship and their trust.  You may be able to come back with a question you asked early on but did not receive an answer to once you have their trust.

Another key element is to recognize that there are potentially a number of people within a referral source that all have different (and sometimes divergent) needs.  This multiplies the need for practiced questioning.  The series of open and closed-ended questions must be designed to unearth all of their true interests.  They may say that they select a home care provider by evaluating outcomes and quality of care, but that may have nothing to do with their actual reason.  Until the sales person can learn what motivates the agency selection, they cannot perform a needs analysis that will allow them to form a long-term partnership.  Relationships are only as strong as their basis, therefore the strongest home care referral relationships are based on needs fulfillment.
The process takes time to develop into strong referral relationships.  The pace should not be rushed.  The sales person cannot afford to be impatient as they will not build the proper rapport.  They may get sloppy and miss important information.  Since the goal is to build long-term relationships, it is necessary to have a long-term perspective. 

Monitoring, managing and protecting the relationships are accomplished by constantly keeping your antennae up to pick up on any changes or new needs.  Just because you have ascertained their needs at one point in time does not mean that they will not change with time.
The depth of the relationship is directly related to the sales person’s ability to continually probe for needs and confirm that the agency is delivering.  Add Legendary Customer Service to the mix and you strengthen it further. 

Finally, if the sales person knows the details about the referral source including personal information such as hobbies, medical school, birthday, etc., then they are positioned to have a strong and long relationship.  The relationship should be cultivated at every touch point; ultimately it is only as strong as the weakest link.

Partnering is the number one and most unassailable competitive advantage.  Encourage your sales team to be good detectives that build their relationships on the basis of meeting the needs of the referral sources.  Good Luck and Happy Marketing!

The Key to Your Agency’s Sales Success: Partnering (Part 1 of 2)
by

The most successful home care and hospice agencies are those that are able to form a partnership with their referral sources. This is true universally across the country in agencies large and small.  So what does that mean, partnering?

Partnerships are formed with referral sources by the agency’s sales team by isolating the specific needs each referral source has, and then creating a service program that will consistently meet those specific needs. When a partnership relationship is attained, then the referral source just naturally sends their home care and hospice referrals to the agency. Sounds easy, right? Well, let’s dig a little deeper.

Partnering is by far the most effective method of building and maintaining a successful home care or hospice program. For the physician, a partnership may involve a specialized set of protocols and processes that are designed to deliver exactly what they want. In a facility, such as a skilled nursing facility, the partnership may be based on how the facility likes referrals to be handled—for instance, the sales person receiving the name of the patient and then proceeding to meet with the patient and their family, obtaining all of the rest of the relevant referral information. Usually, however you can make dealing with Home Care or Hospice as easy as possible is a good place to start. Why? Well:

If there is one universal tenet, it is that if the home care or hospice agency can make the referral source’s life easier, then they will receive their referrals.

To best accomplish this level of partnership, training for the sales team should be based on needs assessment, or how to ask about needs. The sales people need to learn to ask questions designed to discover what is most important to each particular referral source. While ultimately the goal is to find out what it will take to become their preferred home care or hospice provider, in the short term they want to know which needs the agency can fulfill. Once they know the answer to that question, it is then simply a matter of positioning the agency as the logical choice to deliver on those needs.  Since most agencies do not train their sales people in the art of needs assessment, the competitive advantage can be huge.

Needs assessment is not an easy art to master. It is much like being a great detective—it sounds easier than it is. Good detectives ask questions that they have already planned ahead of time, like with a chess match. They try to think a couple moves ahead of the conversation when choosing their questions. They mix closed and open ended questions to get that precious information about their referral source’s needs. What the questions are and how the questioning occurs can position the sales person as both genuinely interested and eventually—the one with the solution. By repeating back the information to test for understanding and agreement, they can build a road that takes them where they want to go.

So, now that you’ve got the basics down about HOW to partner—next issue we’ll go over what specific types of questions and how to ask them in order to become your referral source’s logical solution to their needs (and in the process becoming their preferred Home Care or Hospice provider!). Have a great couple of weeks, and happy selling!

Previous Articles

The 7 Keys of Highly Effective Home Care Marketing: Part 2 of 2
by

In the last issue of The Legendary Sales Leadership Letter, we went over the first 3 keys to building an effective Home Care Marketing plan.  The marketing plan developed by each home care organization will determine, in large part, its success over the next five years.  We may not know the future of Medicare rules, regulations or payment rates, but we do know that competition for those patients will continue to be intense.

The last 4 keys to Home Care Marketing and Sales success are:

Packaging and Specialization

Everyday there are more agencies that are creating specialty to programs to meet the specific needs of their customers.  The sales team should be probing for these needs and communicating them back to the agency.  The agency can then develop a specialty program in partnership with major referral sources to create the perfect home care solution for their patients.  This level of integration allows for the referral relationship to become almost unassailable by the competition.  In fact, when the home care agency adopts the physician group’s protocols, the care becomes almost seamless.  This improves patient outcomes and satisfaction with care and makes your referral source happy.  This represents a win-win-win situation.

The key considerations when developing a specialty program are:

- Is there a sufficient market for these services in your community?
- Have you established the goals for the specialty program?
- Is the return on investment sufficient enough to support the cost of development and implementation?
- Are there physicians that are interested in assisting in the development of the program?
- Will the physicians write the orders specifically for your agency and the program?
- Does the agency have the staff with specialized training in the field being considered?

The market analysis showing that there is a sufficient demand in your service area for the care delivered under this specialty program is the critical first step.  If the answer is no, then the actual return on investment will not be adequate.  Set goals for the new program for increased referrals, implementation timetable, patient satisfaction, outcomes and all other key elements that you can measure.  When calculating the return delivered by the specialty program, you must first deduct the referrals that you are already receiving and look at the incremental increases in referrals.  Of course, the improved clinical outcomes, patient satisfaction and strengthened relationships have value and should be considered in the calculations.

Packaging around existing core competencies allows the agency to develop a specialty program quicker and with less expense.  Further, the agency has a current flow of referrals with care plans that are consistent with the plans that will be developed for the specialty program.  Approach some of the current referral sources as potential partners in the development of the program.  Whether you are partnering with existing referral sources or new ones, the involvement of one or more specialists is very important to the ultimate success of the program.

Successful specialty programs include:

- Orthopedic
- Neuro Rehab
- Cardiac
- Pre-hospice
- Alzheimer’s
- Pulmonary
- Pediatric

The home care industry is rapidly adopting this concept and developing specialty programs.  The packaging is important to establish a “brand” for the program in the community.  If you are first to market you will have to blaze the trail and create the interest for this type of program.

Training is important for both the sales force and the clinical team.  The sales team needs to understand the clinical aspects well enough to discuss the program in the community.  The clinical team needs to understand how the sales process is designed so that they may integrate with it to promote the program when appropriate. 

Many times the initial and ongoing success of the program will hinge on whether or not the physicians are willing to act as advocates for the program and the agency.  When developing the program qualify the physicians for commitments to refer to the program.  Then enlist them in the promotion to others in the community.  This is a great place to collect and use testimonials.

The naming of the program is another important aspect of its marketing.  It should be reflective of the services and area of specialization.  Making it easy to remember and understand is always a good idea.  If it is the first program of its type in your service area, then you have the opportunity to create the brand associated with this type of specialty program in the community.  In addition to the name there needs to be a USP (unique selling proposition) for the program.  It should explain why someone should use the program.

Focused Message

There is a good reason that successful politicians are constantly staying on message.  They know that if they have a focused message and they deliver it consistently they have the highest chance of being elected.  Clearly the message must resonate with the voting citizens.  The same principles hold true in creating your advertising, sales and marketing message.  Know the target market and focus the message on the benefits to this segment of the market.  If you are tracking why each referral source selects the agency, focusing the message becomes much easier.

Each member of the sales team must understand the agency’s message and be prepared to deliver it consistently to each of the referral sources they manage.  The message must be adapted to resonate with each of the referral sources to reflect their key interests.  By keeping the salespeople focused on the central message the effectiveness of the team will be greatly increased.  Keep focused on the message and its benefits to the intended audience.

Highly trained sales team

In other industries the ongoing sales training for the sales team is standard.  In home care it is still the minority of agencies that have professional sales training programs.  Those agencies that have invested in the ongoing training are well rewarded.  The training programs may involve outside experts and or internal resources.  All sales people benefit from sales training; they either learn new concepts and strategies or have familiar ones reinforced.

The sales training should be consistent for all of the sales representatives as they are added to the team or replace an existing team member.  If your new hires come with prior home care sales experience, make them take the same training and learn the way that your agency does things.  The consistency of the image and message delivered by the sales team is very important.  Many times new sales people will be bringing sales practices, home care knowledge or beliefs that are not consistent with the new agency.  This must be guarded against to prevent the potential damage to the carefully built reputation of the agency in the community.

The best training program for home care sales team is to have monthly or quarterly one- or two-day training programs for all sales team members (including inside and outside salespeople).  Ideally the entire sales team is assembled to ensure that all members hear and learn the same strategies and approaches.  This will also serve to build the team and its cohesiveness.  Additionally, the salespeople should read about sales and listen to CDs about sales in the car. 

The agency will always have a large investment in the sales team and its members—professional sales training only makes sense. 

Technology

The adoption of CRM (customer relationship management) practices is becoming more common place in home care.  Other industries have invested heavily in CRM solutions to create a stronger relationship with their customer.  There are numerous benefits including:

- Track effectiveness and results of sales and marketing initiatives
- Understand where the referrals are coming from and why
- Know what your sales team is doing and the results they are producing
- Manage all referral source information in a central database
- Rate accounts and prioritize sales activities
- Never lose important information if a sales person leaves the organization
- Know the customer and how to best service them to build a long-term strong relationship

The technology that the agency is using to manage their patient care such as point of care devices, telehealth, pathways, diagnostic tests, etc. can also be used to create a point of differentiation.  This allows the referral source to have one more reason to specify an agency.  The benefit to the referral sources and to the patients or clients must be communicated for maximum benefit to be derived.

The sales team should have the ability to make PowerPoint presentations to larger groups with an LCD projector or to small groups on a laptop.  This presentation should be consistent with the agency’s marketing image and its other collateral materials.  It should be very professional.  The message must be crafted for each type of audience to make each presentation most effective.

Conclusion

Home care as an industry is rapidly being forced to adopt aggressive sales and marketing strategies and tactics.  Competition is fierce and the ability to differentiate the agency in the eyes of the community, in particular the referral sources, will determine the long-term viability of the home care program.  The relationships built over many years can be lost if the agency is unable to compete on the sales and marketing front as well as with service delivery.

Invest wisely in the sales and marketing program and the results will follow.  Engage professional advisors to plan, implement, refine and measure the success of the sales effort.  Create a sales culture in the organization that is inclusive of all staff.

The 7 Keys of Highly Effective Home Care Marketing: Part 1 of 2
by

The new year is upon us, and one thing is certain: competition is getting fierce in home care.  Existing agencies are expanding and new ones are opening.  Even in the certificate of need states, the level of competition is heating up. So what do you need to do to make 2010 the start of your next big successes? 

The marketing plan developed by each home care organization will determine, in large part, its success over the next five years.  We may not know the future of Medicare rules, regulations or payment rates, but we do know that competition for those patients will continue to be intense.

Development of a superior marketing plan will pay great dividends no matter the size, scope or type of agency.  Should plans include diversification into other sectors of the home care field, then the plan to market and sell those services should be carefully crafted to enable successful diversification.

The following seven keys will ensure your future marketing success:

Competitive Market Research

Know the competition and the market!  Knowing how the competition compares is extremely important to the success of the program.  The demographic of the market(s) that are served and the projections for the next ten years will determine the viability of your agency’s programs and services.

To conduct competitive analysis, the agency needs to establish an ongoing “secret shopper” program that will shop the competition alongside your agency.  The key attributes to be surveyed need be established in order to track the comparison with the competition.  The sales team must be armed with the knowledge of what each competitor does well, and what they do not.  Only then will they be able to craft a specific targeted and effective sales message that will deliver maximum results with their referral partners.  This is essential, and you can do this internally or hire an outside firm to conduct the research. 

For the market analysis you will want to consult with the available demographic and industry specific data.  There are many sources of information, with little definitive or extensive information.  There are studies underway to determine the best sales and marketing practices of the leaders in the home care industry, and some of the measures being studied include amount and composition of marketing budgets, how the budgets are developed, sales practices, training, CRM (customer relationship management) solution usage, ROI (return on investment) and others.  Over the next few years there will be better data developed against which to benchmark your agency’s practices.

Finally, it is advisable to subscribe to benchmarking services to contrast your agency’s sales and marketing practices with comparable agencies in the industry.  By knowing how the agency compares to its peers the senior and sales management may better direct the sales and marketing programs.

Customer Service

Home care is a service industry, and will always be one.  Therefore the ability to continually perfect the service delivered will be an important part of the overall sales and marketing success.  Without great customer service the effect of the sales and marketing effort will be just spinning wheels.  The focus must be to do everything possible to make the referral source’s job easier and to enable the best service for their referrals.

One thing to make sure that all agency staff understands is this: there will always be problems in home care.  It is an industry with a lot of moving parts and they are all human.  This means that the staff must welcome each new problem and rejoice for the opportunity to provide service that exceeds expectations.  The old saying about every complaint representing a golden sales opportunity is nowhere more applicable than in home care!

The home care sales team must seize every opportunity to build relationships by exhibiting strong customer service.  They should be viewed by the referral source as a trusted service representative that will handle anything that they need pertaining to home care.  The salesperson must be visible and accountable at all times and under any circumstances.  The strongest relationships are between companies and customers where there has been a problem and it was resolved to the customer’s complete and total satisfaction.

Strong Relationships

The goal of every sales and marketing effort should be to build strong relationships.  Home care marketing is all about relationships.  The stronger the relationships the greater the reliance by the customer on the agency to provide the entire range of home care services required.  There are many ways to build and maintain strong relationships.  Every sales representative should be constantly looking for ways to better know their customers.  This will lead to the opportunity to cement referral relationships. 

The key to forging these strong relationships is to know everything that you can about the customer and then have than information available to the entire sales team.  This would include the inside sales people also known in many organizations as intake.  If the inside sales people know what the outside sales rep knows, then it is possible to truly offer seamless and complete CRM.  The deeper the knowledge of the customer, their personal aspects and service requirements, the better able the agency is to provide this level of super service.  The more people in the organization that have access to this information the greater the impact of this personalized communication and service.

The relationships that the agency maintains in the community with its referral sources and other customers are the most valuable asset.  In home care this asset must be constantly cultivated, nurtured, managed and protected.  Cultivated to build new relationships and foster deeper relationships within existing referral source organizations.  Nurtured to constantly develop the relationship and the level of trust the referral source has with the home care agency.  They must be managed to ensure the best results and consistent service.  Relationships must be protected at all times to keep the asset safe from competition.

These first 3 keys will be the building blocks for the last 4 keys, to be shared in the next issue of The Legendary Sales Leadership Letter. Until then, Happy Selling!

Have You Found Your Tipping Point?
by

In Malcolm Gladwell’s best selling business book, The Tipping Point, he makes the case that change happens dramatically and ideas spread like an epidemic.  His idea is simple: for every product or service there is a tipping point at which time the message takes hold and the results are powerful.  While it is applied in the book towards other industries, we can use the same concepts in Home Care and Hospice.

In Home Care and Hospice, there is a tipping point that defines the change from being a reacting service provider to a proactive sales organization.  It is a very important chance, one that is becoming increasingly necessary for many factors: from increased competition, the economy, mounting financial losses—and everything in between.

Gladwell cites three characteristics of change at the tipping point: first, contagiousness; second, that little causes have big effects; and third, change happens not gradually in one dramatic moment.  To even begin to make good use of these concepts in your Home Care or Hospice agency’s sales and marketing, you have to first recognize that the train is leaving the station, and you need to make sure your agency is on it!

Where is your tipping point?  What will be your wake up call?  Once your competitors have taken over five of your best referral sources? 10? All of them? Have you already missed your tipping point, and will you soon be playing catch up?

Once you decide to take the necessary steps to change your marketing and sales strategy for the new decade’s upcoming challenges, change will happen in a hurry.  There is a flywheel effect to the process, and it takes a long time to get the wheel to even move enough to make the first rotation—but thankfully it will get easier and quicker from that point forward.  That is, of course, as long as we continue to exert the energy required to keep it moving.

I have found that there are still many Home Care and Hospice agencies that have not yet felt compelled to focus on developing a comprehensive sales and marketing strategy.  They are, thankfully, fewer by the month.  More agencies are planning their growth strategically and with a sales mentality—and the more advanced they become in this process, the more effective they will be and the more momentum will start to build.

In cas